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New Orleans, August 2005. The lives of a ballet dancer, a reporter, a psychiatrist, and a Voodoo queen intersect and overlap in the shadow of a stalker and a serial killer... and all the while, a bad wind named Katrina is headed their way.

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Born in the Bronx, N.Y., Robert Mayer attended the City College of NY, and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. After a brief stint at the Washington Post, he joined the staff of Newsday. He spent ten years there, six as a reporter and four as the paper's New York City columnist. In 1968 he won the National Headliner Award as the best feature columnist in the country. In 1969 he won the Mike Berger Award for the year's best writing about New York City. In 1971 he received the Mike Berger Award again, becoming the first person to win it twice. He then moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to write books and articles. Mayer is the author of nine books -- seven novels and two works of non-fiction. Three of the books have been reissued in new editions during the past few years. They include Superfolks, which (for better or worse) altered the treatment of super heroes in comics and movies forever; Notes of a Baseball Dreamer, a memoir about growing up as a wannabe major leaguer in the city; and The Dreams of Ada, the true story of two men spending life in prison for a murder they did not commit . Between writing books Mayer served six years as managing editor and then editor of The Santa Fe Reporter, an alternative weekly. His journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, Condé Naste Traveler, Travel & Leisure, Metropolitan Home, Rocky Mountain Magazine and numerous other publications. Currently he is completing a new novel.

Top customer reviews

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An initial confession: I'm a great fan of Robert Mayer and am always pleasantly surprised when each new book he writes is totally different in style and genre from the one before. Therefore, I was fascinated to learn that this great writer had deviated from his other themes and had written a mystery thriller.

"Danse Macabre" again demonstrates that Mayer is a virtuoso of words. This dark, brooding page turner is one of the richest books of this kind I've ever read. The reader can expect literary insights into the worlds of New Orleans voodoo culture, ballet, a serial killer and characters that are haunted by inner demons. The plot winds, unwinds and winds again through a labyrinth of twists and turns.

When cut to the core, the novel is a who-done-it that leaves you guessing, squirming and breathless. Kudos to Mayer for this diverting mystery read that also somehow manages to embrace Hurricane Katrina as one of its central characters as well.

Danse Macabre is a gripping story, set in New Orleans, and imaginatively told. The story telling is passed around from observer to observer, including a Vodoo Queen in the cemetery. There's a string of murders to solve, and why does all this have to mess up the life of a lovely and ambitious ballerina? Meanwhile, hurricane Katrina is about to make landfall...you won't be able to put this book down.

I am not sure how this book maintained such a well-crafted and choesive story line with so much crazy, suspenseful, other-worldly, outrageous stuff crammed into it, but somehow it works. It makes for an edge-of-your-seat page turner that leaves me wishing it were part of a series so I could quench my thirst for more. Congratualtions on this one, Robert Mayer!

This book is hugely enjoyable! A disaster bearing down, a beautiful ballerina, a serial killer, and coolest of all, Marie Laveau, Voodoo Queen, called from the (never-quite) dead to save her city. Bob Mayer's amazing. He's written a riveting thriller that is also great fun.